W Workhouse
Feature · approvals

Sign-off in one click. Not one email thread.

Send any deliverable for client approval inline on the task. The client clicks Approve, Request Changes, or Decline. The decision lands in the activity feed, notifies the right people, and lives in the audit log forever.

Agency approvals are usually a mess.

You send a deliverable over email. The client replies-all with feedback. Someone on your team rolls the feedback into a v2 attached to a new email. The client approves in the new thread. Three months later, you can't remember what v1 looked like and the client can't remember whether they approved v2 or v3 — and neither email account agrees with the other.

The version history is in your inbox. The decisions are in someone's screenshot. The audit trail is in your memory. When something goes sideways, there's no single source of truth.

How approvals work in Workhouse

1

Request approval on any task.

One click. Pick the client contact who should decide. They get an email and a portal action item with the deliverable attached.

2

Client decides on the task itself.

Approve, Request Changes, or Decline — with an optional comment. No email reply. The decision happens in context, on the deliverable.

3

Decision lands everywhere it needs to.

Activity feed entry, notifications to assignee + reviewer, audit log entry. The task moves to its next status automatically based on the decision.

What that gets you

A real audit trail.

Every approval decision lives in the activity feed and the audit log. "When did the client sign off on v2?" has a permanent answer.

Versioned context.

Each approval is bound to the task at the moment of the request — attached files, description, status, comments. The whole picture is preserved.

Decision routing.

Specify who can approve. Some agencies route all client decisions to a single contact; others let any contact in a client's portal approve.

Change requests as comments.

"Request changes" comes with a free-form comment. The decision is recorded; the rationale is captured; the next round picks up where you left off.

Status automation.

Approved tasks move to Done. Change-requested tasks return to In Progress. Declined tasks stay surfaced for your team to handle.

Email-friendly for the client.

The client can approve directly from the email — no portal login required if you don't want to force one. Click the link, click Approve, done.

When agencies use approvals

Common questions

Can multiple people approve the same deliverable?

Yes. Set the approval to require N approvals from M reviewers. Useful for client-side approvals where one approver isn't enough (e.g., marketing director + CMO must both sign off).

What if the client wants to negotiate before approving?

The Request Changes path is for exactly that. Client leaves a comment with what they need different; your team adjusts; you re-request approval. The full back-and-forth lives on the task.

Does the client need to log in?

No. The approval email contains a signed link that lets them approve without logging in. Forced login is optional per workspace. Most agencies leave it off for friction reasons; some keep it on for paranoid clients.

Can we approve internally too?

Yes. Approvals work the same way for internal reviewers — your art director approves a comp before it goes to the client; your tech lead approves a PR before it ships. The audit trail records the decision either way.

What if the client says yes verbally on a call?

Your team can mark the approval as approved-on-behalf, with a note on the source. The audit log records who marked it and why. Not as clean as a direct client approval but sometimes the call already happened.

Related: visibility model → · audit log → · client portal →

Get the decision.Keep the receipt.